The Stewards:

Spreadsheets are terrific - we've all used them. I particularly like Google spreadsheets - I use them all the time to collect data, usually from students. Go to Google Drive Make a form Send the form out to the students Wait All the data gets dumped into a Google spreadsheet. The trouble is, what to do with it once it's in the spreadsheet. The other day, I wrote on a few basic stats for our upcoming SHIP program.

Yesterday, some of the seniors from the 301 crowd along with a few teachers had an end of year dinner at Joe's Shanghai. While it's Famous for its soup dumplings: I'm partial to the braised pork shoulder: We haven't had a 301 dinner in a long time, but I remember the crew, first unnamed, then using the moniker "the Z-team" used to go their all them time. It was always Joe's Shanghai, followed by a trip to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory: and then the obligatory photo in front of the Mei Dick Barbershop at 37 Mott St (now gone): The 301 crew, or Z-team as it's some times been called are the students that spend their time in the CS room at Stuy.

Just completed the second time through for my Software Development course. Last year we had a great time at our Demo Night hosted at Google. This year, unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons, we couldn't get the event together. Still, the kids did great work so I thought I'd share. This year, I asked each group to make a short video. First up, we've got bit<<shift - a search engine for code.

One of the things I love about StuyCS is that we've built a true Geek culture. Last week, we had a last minute visitor - Stephen Wolfram. Well known for Mathematica and more importantly, Wolfram Alpha, without which our students wouldn't be able to complete all their homework. The only problem was that we had about 24 hours from when the visit was confirmed til the talk was to take place.

Last night, I attended the Dream It, Code It, Win It awards. I'd actually write up the event but Fred Wilson's already done a better job at that than I could: http://avc.com/2014/05/dream-it-and-code-it/ As Fred stated on his blog, it's a real shame that the high schooler's didn't get to show off their work but it was great to see that there were entries from a variety of schools including The Academy for Software Engineering and The Young Women's Leadership Academy.

We have the kids write programs in all sorts of ways on paper solo informally in pairs "pair programming" We have them trade code, pick up each others projects, and more. We do lots of different things to engage the kids in a lot of different ways and I love it when someone comes up with a new technique. My friend, colleague, and incidentally, former student, Sam had such an idea the other day.

It's been a while since my last post. That's mostly since I've getting things ready for this announcement. I've talked about our non-profit CSTUY before. Well, we've been hard at work getting things together for our first summer program: SHIP - Summer Hackers Immersion Program We're really excited about this - taking our years of experience teaching kids at our schools and taking it to a wider audience. SHIP is being hosted at St.